7/3/2014 10 Lessons from Performance Analyst - Bill Gerard

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10 LESSONS FROM
PERFORMANCE ANALYST BILL
GERARD
17 JUN , 2014
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A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a Performance Analysis
Interest Group meeting here in Ireland. It was really the first time most of the
analysts in Ireland got in the same room. Considering the size of the country and
the number of analysts its surprising it has taken this long. But thanks to Johnny,
Denise and Alan for organising it.
Bill Gerrard
The day opened with a talk from
Bill Gerard Technical Analyst as
Saracens Rugby. Bill is a great
speaker and has a long history in
Sports Analytics. The talk was over
90 mins but here were some of the
key points Bill shared.
1. Dont waste time with Sceptics
2. What does a perfect performance
look like? Thats how you define your KPIs
3. Always ask WHY and help coaches ask better questions.
4. The key with opposition analysis is can we know them better than they do.
5. At Saracens the coaches spend 20-30 hours on coding the game as well as
the analysts time.
6. Analysis = Analytics without purpose & influence
7. Analytics = R&D, Practical Application = Making a difference.
8. Saracens are evidence based but people centred. They put a huge emphasis
on personal development and in 1 season had up to 29 players in further
7/3/2014 10 Lessons from Performance Analyst - Bill Gerard
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education whilst playing.
9. Bills role is to exist outside the 7-day cycle, staying out of the short-term
and trying to exist in a medium to long-term perspective. This can often give
him a more reflective role with the coaches.
There were also 2 bigger points I thought were worth giving more than a simple
bullet point to.
10. Bill was invited into Saracens via the front door so he was not trying to
influence up from an intern position or there were no layers between him and the
director of Rugby. This immediately gave him a much more central role and meant
his opinion was valued from day one. Sadly this is not often the case.
The other thing I really liked about his initial meeting with the back-room staff is
that he met each coach on a one-to-one basis. The coaches gave that time to Bill to
explain their KPIs, how their post game review went and they types of things they
looked for. This is such a vital step in the analysis coach relationship. The more
routine the analyst can take out of the coaches day the better, understanding as
much as possible about what the coach is looking for makes you a more valuable
analyst. The fact that the coaches deliberately set aside this time is testament to
the culture at Saracens and no doubt improves Bills effectiveness as an analyst.
11. Perhaps the most important thing I took out of the day was how Bill broke
down the actual coding of the game. With regards to individual player
performance they have two very distinct phases.
First they do the Contribution Data this is the tally information, the actual
activity the players did. Ball contacts, that sort of thing. 10 passes, 6 Tackles etc
This information is important but it is very limited. This is the type of information
that a 3rd party could probably collect.
The second stage is what Bill called Intensity/Accuracy Data. This is effectively
how well the contribution data was done. This is the bit the coaches do and it
mostly relates to things like decision making and how well the technique was
performed. So the pass was successful (contribution data) but was it the right pass,
was their a better option (accuracy data).
7/3/2014 10 Lessons from Performance Analyst - Bill Gerard
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Although Im sure this goes on in most teams I thought it was a great idea to
actually break it out into 2 distinct categories. But here is the danger. If an analyst
gets stuck only ever collecting Contribution Data are they really doing any thing
more than just coding games? The real value is in the addition of specifics
contained in the Intensity/Accuracy Data. This is data that is coach and team
specific, it relates directly to how that team plays and is almost impossible to
replicate from outside the team because only the coaches on the inside knows the
intent or purpose behind some of the calls and actions.
For me as an analyst I try to add as much value as I can in the Intensity/Accuracy
Data. Thats why I think its vital you spend as much time with coaches
understanding their philosophy, what they want the players to do and how they
think the game should be played. The more you can understand what the coach
wants the more value you can add. It wont happen over night but if you want to
do more than Capture-Code-Copy you have to move beyond Contribution Data.
All in all it was a great day and I will do a follow up post on some of the other
aspects of the day soon. Any comments or anything to add would be great to hear
from you?
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